Of Night and Wind
Directed by Matteo Coelho2024 14m[Short](/on-demand/category/short), [Drama](/on-demand/category/drama)
Emil, observant and curious, sees the pressure his father has to bear with caring for a son whose deteriorating health has whittled their conversations down to small assurances and bouts of silence. Abraham, an emotionally unavailable man, has a good heart, but his mind is clouded with pride and suspicion. This creates a disconnect between father and son, and makes room for something awful to move in. That awful thing is found in the darkness of the woods, the pitch black of the natural world where absolute truth stalks, and waits, for those misguided, who yearn for the relief it may provide. Death stalks in the form of the Erlkonig, a malevolent spirit whose motives are to seek out the weak-willed and destitute, a spirit who offers comforts that seem true in the face of waking life's deceptions. Emil drifts into sleep on the car ride home, and sees the entity and his reich throw their best at him. He is at first fearful of the Erlkonig's gifts and promises. Emil sees the demon meddling in memories of places in his early childhood, and sees his "daughters" tempt him with promises of tenderness. Emil seeks reasons to tough it out with his father, but Abraham, blind to the phantoms that befall his son, is occupied with his own anxieties over his son's declining health and the mounting medical bills which follow. Emil is caught between the mundane suffering of his reality, and the terrifying, unpredictable world of his dreams.
